A bestselling American author is trying to stop distribution of a book by her former co-writer, a Canadian philanthropist, alleging he plagiarized her contributions to their failed joint project and stole passages from a book she wrote more than 10 years ago.

Barbara Coloroso, a writer and expert on parenting and bullying, has filed an injunction in Ontario Superior Court against Andrew Faas, a former executive with Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaw.

She is seeking an order that would prevent Faas, his consulting firm and the U.S. publisher of his solo work, The Bully’s Trap: Bullying in the Workplace, from distributing the book.

The injunction is the latest move in an escalating legal battle between two colleagues who were supposed to write a book together about bullying in the workplace, until their own working relationship devolved into alleged bullying.

In a response filed in court, Faas says his book was released by Tate Publishing nearly three months early without his knowledge. He says he made an agreement with the publisher that it would be Tate’s responsibility, not his, to “ensure that there was no material in The Bully’s Trap which was also contained in Coloroso’s previously published work.” Tate Publishing did not respond Monday to multiple interview requests.

Coloroso and Faas teamed up in January 2010, with a view to using their individual strengths to write a companion piece to Coloroso’s 2002 international bestseller, The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander. The pair signed a book deal with HarperCollins, Coloroso’s publisher, and agreed to submit a first manuscript by the summer of 2011.

According to Faas, things began to fall apart when Coloroso didn’t finish her portion of the work on time.He sued her last year for $1.1 million, alleging in a statement of claim filed in Superior Court that she unilaterally terminated their agreement with HarperCollins, thereby breaching their contract.

In a $1.5 million countersuit, Coloroso claims it was Faas who breached the contract by committing “blatant acts of plagiarism and copyright infringement” from sources including Wikipedia. She says she ended her association with Faas when he refused to remove plagiarized text she discovered in his portions of their joint manuscript.

Each denies the other’s allegations.

After the HarperCollins deal fell apart, Faas found a new publisher for his own portion of the manuscript.The Bully’s Trap was released by Tate Publishing in July 2013, months earlier than scheduled, and then abruptly removed from the publisher’s website after Coloroso alerted Tate about the alleged plagiarism and copyright infringement, according to an affidavit filed with her motion.

“The damage to my reputation arising from publication of Faas’ book The Bully’s Trap containing my work attributed to Faas as author cannot be undone or compensated for in money terms,” she says in the affidavit. “If allowed to continue,” she adds, it will “cause further irreparable damage.”

For a story published in August, the Star obtained a copy of Faas’s book and ran it through a computer program that checks for plagiarism. With the help of the software, the Star identified more than two dozen passages that contain strong or word-for-word similarities with online sources such as Wikipedia.

The injunction motion is scheduled to be heard in Ontario Superior Court in Toronto Nov. 14.

“With the assistance of Tate Publishing, and without admitting the validity of concerns referenced by Coloroso ... I have now revised the manuscript of The Bully’s Trap to the point where I believe that I have addressed all of those concerns,” Faas wrote in an affidavit filed with his response.

He argues there is “no basis for injunctive relief,” because “I am willing to refrain from future publication of The Bully’s Trap pending advice from Coloroso as to any concerns she has with the revised manuscript.”

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